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Archive for April, 2012

let’s get lost…

Firdevs suggested I do that my first day in Istanbul but I decided I would wait a couple of days to take Chet Baker’s advice…

In case you are starting to feel like you are on Contiki tour bus doing the Europe in 10 days tour, I will provide a little geographical grounding.  I am actually in Paris as I type this.  I have been collecting thoughts, writing notes and scribbling little bits of various blog posts over the past few days in various locales so I am now going to try and finish some of the posts and send them out into the world wide web.

So we are finished with Berlin.  This will be the last post for Istanbul.  A lot more happened on my first two days in Paris than I expected so we still have to catch up on Paris v1.0 and then move on to the present, Paris v2.0.  But right now we are back in Istanbul on my final day there…

I was pretty sure I knew the way to Galata now from my neighborhood so I just wandered off without a map, seeing if I would need to use one.  The Galata Tower is, if I remember correctly, the oldest structure of its kind, the CN Tower of the ancient world.  Of course, in the ancient world, there weren’t a lot of people so the stone stairs are narrow, it is very crowded at the top and I would not recommend it if you are scared of heights.  But it provides a sweeping view of the entire city.  Unfortunately it was pretty smoggy and sunny and getting a great photo proved difficult but I saw it and it was spectacular.  If YOU want to see it, you will have to go to Istanbul 🙂

I figured the Galata Bridge shouldn’t be too far away and I might be able to find it just by wandering in the general direction.  It worked!  We will now time travel to the thoughts I scribbled in a notebook in the moment…

“I found the Galata Bridge so I am now sitting on a tiny stool with a bunch of single men waiting for the mystery fish that I ordered.  Had I thought it through a little better, I would have paid more attention to the fish names in the market while I was snapping their portraits.  Luckily I like fish and have eaten fish all over the world.  Fish – unlike Coca Cola – is very local so you are forced to be adventurous.  Sitting here on my precarious perch surrounded by people speaking Turkish and no other tourists in the vicinity, I feel like an adventuress.

Having a sense of adventure can get you in tiny bits of trouble but I have good instincts and have never come to harm anywhere.

It has arrived!  A giant fish complete with eyeballs staring at me.  Luckily my mom is not here with me.  Once upon a time in one of Honest Ed’s fancy restaurants in Toronto, she was served a piece of fish that had not been filleted.  She couldn’t even just cut the head off.  It had to be removed by someone else and then placed UNDER the table so it couldn’t watch her eating it.  I fished it out from under the table before we left so the server wouldn’t have to wait for the smell to find it…

I have no idea what this fish IS but it is excellent.   So I guess I would just encourage you to find the fish market near the Galata Bridge and just order something…  You can benefit from my experience and choose some fish that looks promising and note its name in Turkish before you sit down to eat :)”

OK, so now back to talking about the past in the present…

Emboldened by my fish market adventure, I decided to see if I could do a Bosphorous tour.  I’d been a little worried about getting on a boat and being taken somewhere and not knowing where I was and not speaking a world of Turkish, having trouble getting home.  But one has to take some small adventures if you want to have the great stories in the nursing home so I wandered over to the dock and saw a sign that suggested I could pay 12 Turkish lira and get on a boat that would take me on a one hour Bosphorous cruise.

Well, the 12 lira part was accurate.  And I did get on a boat.  A lot of hand gestures and false starts ensued before I actually found a boat that would take me.  And then the suggestion was that it was the wrong boat but I could get on anyway.  That always feels comforting when you can’t speak the language and you are now on a boat going somewhere…

Luckily we were only going across the water.  But then the guy who had let me and a couple of others on came and rounded us up and kicked us off.  Where we were supposed to go next was really unclear but I thought he had said the number 3 and he seemed to be OK when I finally tried to get on the third boat in the line after we docked.  I’d first tried the one next door but the hand gestures suggested no.  The guy on the third boat actually took my ticket so it seemed promising.  Of course, I now had no idea where I was going – or where I was supposed to get off.

Despite the slight trauma involved in the experience, seeing the Bosphorous from the water was one of the best things that I did while I was in Istanbul.  And I was really happy Manuel had really pushed me to get on the water.  The palaces, villas and yachts parked in front that you see from the water are amazing.  And I got to try some Turkish tea!  Which was incredibly bitter.  I am not much for sweets but I used both packets of sugar just to make it palatable.

While the cruise part was wonderful, I still had to deal with the mystery of departure.  I gathered there was going to be a few different options so I just disembarked when the vast majority of other people did.  It seemed the safest option.

It was, of course, not where I had started my cruise… so I looked around vacantly trying to figure out where I was on the map.  Luckily I realized after a few minutes the dock name I couldn’t find on my map wasn’t a dock name at all – but the name of the ship line.  I looked around a bit and decided I was likely next to the Galata Bridge – but on the other side.

So… if I just walked over the bridge, I would be back where I had started from – and where I knew my way.  It worked!  People fish off the Galata Bridge.  There are fish restaurants everywhere.  So walking back allowed me to absorb the atmosphere and take a few photos.

I then attempted to get killed trying to cross the street.  I even followed locals but not all of them had made the right choice.  I later learned that there was likely an underground passageway I was supposed to be using instead of playing in traffic.  But once upon a time I had to cross a busy road in Pompeii all by myself in order to not miss the bus back to Rome and once you have done that, traffic doesn’t scare you anymore 😉

I got back to the hotel without a map and the rest of the evening seemed a little wimpy by comparison 🙂  I did go and say good-bye to my bartenders and got to see more bombs on the news in Turkish.  It was a little disconcerting.  One of the bars I frequently had a TV but the news was in Turkish of course so I would see stuff that looked kind of scary but not really be sure where it was happening…

While I was in Istanbul, I finished “Three Cups of Tea.”  I would recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read it.  About a guy named Greg Mortenson building schools – mostly for girls – in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  I had started reading it in Vancouver but never had time to finish so put it in my luggage for the trip.  Reading it in Turkey was definitely more poignant.

I finished Istanbul with dinner at Mikla.  Mikla is one of the most famous and expensive restaurants in Istanbul.  It is on the 18th floor of the Marmara Pera with a sweeping 360 degree view of Istanbul lit up at night.  The view was stunning and worth paying for the dinner.

Unfortunately for Mikla I have eaten all over the world.  I have even turned my small town mother into the kind of protégé who says snobby stuff like, “yes, Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s was OK but the One at the Balmoral in Edinburgh was a true gourmet paradise.”  And, “yeah, I enjoyed Daniel but it was no Eleven Madison Park.”  Needless to say, impressing me isn’t easy…

In general Mikla was underwhelming.   It seemed to be trying a little too hard to be hip – and that is never cool.   So, if you go to Istanbul, go there for the view – but a drink in the bar likely a cheaper way to do that.  Go to Auf for the food.

I learned some new information in Istanbul.  But mostly what I came away with was a confirmation of my travel strategy that seems to work everywhere…  Get a map and a guidebook and use them for general advice but don’t be afraid to make your own choices too.  Engage the locals and take some chances – get a little lost, try an obscure restaurant, take a ferry to somewhere…  If you don’t come home without at least one story someone else is willing to listen to, you are just a tourist… not yet a real traveller 😉

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geologists rock :)

I figured my friend Iain – one of my loyal readers – would enjoy the headline 🙂  It was inspired by my visit to the Neues Museum.  Personally I think the name is a bit misleading as it’s full of OLD stuff.  But I can just hear some German pedantically explaining to me… well, the stuff was in the Altes Museum and then this was renovated and stuff moved over so natürlich it’s the Neues Museum…

But, hey, the German love of facts and precision is very useful in a museum setting.  That’s how I learned about early Cypriot copper mining, which made Cyprus a big deal in the ancient world.  I apologize that I definitely acquired a cold (likely all that kissing in Istanbul :)) so my brain wasn’t capable of retaining all the facts I would have liked.

But here are my general impressions of my visit to early history and some impressive archaeology.  Mining rocks to make useful stuff is good for your economy.  Peace is great for cultural advancement (apparently that is why Egypt made such a big splash on the world stage).  We have always been trading – long before money or plastic shopping bags.  Migration and multiculturalism have been around practically as long as mankind – and have always enriched their societies and advanced progress.  Some dude with a spear, sword or gun is always trying to pull some alpha male crap and wreck it all…

As John Lennon sings,” imagine a world without possessions.” Pretty impossible.  But watching countries fight over possessions is pretty amusing.

Going to museums in Berlin is pretty interesting.  The place was pretty much annihilated during WWII.  Thinking ahead, the most valuable objects in the precursor to the Neues Museum were packed away in crates and stored all over Germany in secret places.  When the Red Army declared victory, they hauled away the most valuable crates to Moscow as part of the spoils of war.  A couple of items have been returned but generally they are still in crates somewhere in the Soviet system.  The Germans seem pretty bitter about this – but there is no mention in the placards about how Egypt wants the statue of Nefertiti back…

Personally I have decided the world’s treasures are best served by being in a stable country with proper preservation skills on view for anyone who wishes to see them for a minimal charge.  Because who really owns history?  Of course, I also think national borders are one of mankind’s really bad ideas so…

Once I had finished dragging myself around the Neues Museum trying to get my money’s worth while running to the bathroom every few minutes for more incredibly scratchy German toilet paper, I decided that food might help.  It was tempting to just go back to the hotel but I had been in Germany three days now and hadn’t had any Italian food yet!

The way it works is this.  The Italians are crap at running an economy while the Germans excel at this.  The Germans are crap at cooking but they love Italian food.  So lots of Italians escape their moribund economy, move to Germany and open an Italian restaurant.  When I lived in Germany, I ate Italian food almost exclusively and it was fantastic!

My pizza caprese did not disappoint.  And the real Italian server was very charming.  Once I had wolfed down far more pizza than I had planned on, I returned to the hotel and had a nap instead of doing two more museums.  It’s tough to do when you’re travelling but sometimes it’s the right thing.  My nap proved extremely fortuitous this Easter Monday.

Part of the reason for the nap was so that I would hopefully be sufficiently recovered from my cold to go the Bassy Club.  I had discovered it on my recognisance mission of the neighborhood the previous day.  The poster outside advertised the upcoming concerts.  Who can resist an Australian mariachi band? 😉

When I arrived, some lady in a dress that would have looked perfect on Doris Day was barking instructions in German on swing dancing to an entire floor of dancers, most with tattoos and sneakers instead of poodle skirts.  It was a fascinating cultural adventure and I felt like I had found the ‘real Berlin’.

After the lesson broke up, some English guy named Mike asked me to dance.  Apparently performing complicated dance moves with strangers is what I do in Berlin.  The same thing happened in 2009!  At some point I should actually learn how to dance so I will be ready for these chance encounters 😉

The band was fascinating.  They were good musicians.  And dressed up and made up to look like an authentic Mexican mariachi band.  But when they played, it sounded like mariachi music filtered through a little AC/DC.

I was anticipating that I would just go home after the music stopped but my nap had mostly ridded me of the cold so I thought I might stay a little longer if there was someone to talk to.  First I spied the Brazilian guy I had chatted with pre-band.  We said “hi” but I was distracted by a cute guy with a killer smile who seemed to be smiling at ME.  As they say, the rest is history…

I got back to my hotel at 3am, chivalrously walked there by Björn, the German guy with the Scandinavian name.  I had taught him the word “player” and agreed that he didn’t seem like one so I accepted his invitation to meet up the next day.  It was my last day in Berlin.  He had just returned from vacation in New Orleans and Nashville so didn’t work again until Thursday.

So Berlin ended on a brilliant high note.  I never made it to the Deutsches Historiches Museum – but I got a personal tour by a local of Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg.  My goal this time in Berlin had been to see the “real city” and get closer to feeling like a local.  What better way to accomplish that than actually wandering the streets with someone who lives in Berlin.

I know I will be back.  So I will get to all the museums eventually.  And maybe Björn will show me more of the city – or come with me to a museum.  He is from Hamburg and has only been in Berlin for five years so he could likely play tourist for a few hours.

Hanging out with locals has been a big theme this trip.  The perfect way to see any city…  So, what can I say, don’t forget to hang out in bars when you travel…  Don’t drink too much so you can remember the names of the people you meet – and are sober enough to exchange information so you can be in contact to actually get to see the city with them 😉

Free wi-fi is a great concept but it isn’t working very well so I have a few posts in the queue but no guarantee when you might see them…

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don’t drink the raki! :)

I am managing to stay on top of Berlin so think I will go for a combination of the present and the past until I have caught up with all the stories.

Last night I went to the Circus Hotel for gin and jazz… and dinner.  Had broccoli-cauliflower soup, a big salad and an excellent schnitzel (the Germans really know their way around a pig :)) so balanced out all the cake.  I haven’t seen a room yet but my guidebook speaks very highly of Circus, which offers both a hostel and a hotel.  If the bar is representative, I would recommend it too.

My own hotel seems to be trying a little too hard.  Apparently they threw a block party and artists painted the walls and some British band recorded a playlist for one of the rooms.  I am sure if you were on the roof in the summer for an exclusive party, it would be a brilliant venue.  But last night the bar at Circus was packed and lively while the bar in my hotel felt like a ghost town.

Naturally I made friends with yet another bartender 🙂  He didn’t seem to have a German accent and was very serious about mixing his cocktails so he made me a special one and we got to chatting.  His name is Matthias and he is from Peru, here in Berlin to study film.  It is funny the difference between the Nordic and the Latin cultures.  Maybe all that sunshine makes people friendlier while the cold turns them frosty inside as well.

In between chatting to Matthias – and drinking some excellent gin that tasted of the Black Forest – I wrote up my penultimate day in Istanbul.  So we will time travel back to Istanbul to finish the stories.  Not 101 nights, but two still unaccounted for – but maybe 101 nights in Istanbul in my future…

Up early again to hit my final “must see” Istanbul tourist attraction – Topkapi Palace.  Home of the Sultan – and his harem.

Also home of the infamous carpet shop!  As noted previously, the taxis can’t pull up next to the big tourist attractions so instead deposit you in a general drop-off zone.  Right where I was dropped off yesterday…  The previous day’s adventure did make getting dropped off a little more exciting than for most tourists.  I watched carefully for Nïsam and the carpet shop and make sure the coast was clear before I got out of the taxi.

I scurried out of the drop off zone as fast as possible and avoided eye contact to discourage any “free guides”.  I did take some more photos of the previous day’s attractions.  And took a photo of some Chinese kid in front of the Blue Mosque.  He seemed really pleased.  I take all photos seriously – even if I will never see the final product – so I AM the random stranger you want to ask to take your tourist photo 😉

I then had to find Topkapi Palace on my own.  Nïsam had given me his card and was on call for further tour guide duties.  That would have been a lot easier as tourist signage in Istanbul is not a high priority.  But the place was swarming with tourist buses.  And Nïsam had mildly molested me in some park the day before that he said was next to Topkapi Palace – so I figured I had a general idea which direction to head.

And, without a guide, I was able to wander around Sultanahmet a bit and get lost in small back streets.  I eventually found a crowd to follow and joined the painful line to buy tickets.  The special “local” status Nïsam had conferred on me had disappeared but I was free to spend the day as I wished once I finally got to the ticket window.

Topkapi Palace is the premier tourist attraction in Istanbul and is really worth seeing.  But the Turks are not Germans and it is fairly chaotically organized so you spend a lot of time standing in line and being jostled by Chinese tourists and women in headscarves.  Apparently civility not a big part of either culture.

But the emeralds!  And the Spoonmaker’s  diamond!  And weird stuff like boxes filled with pieces of Muhammad’s beard.  You have to pay extra for the harem – but it’s an architectural marvel.  And really freezing!  I guess the Sultan figured if they were cold, jumping into bed with him would seem a little less repulsive…

While the view from the Palace’s cafe was stunning, the menu was expensive and underwhelming so I finally walked far enough away from the tourist zone to find a taxi to get me back to my ‘hood.  On the previous night’s wandering, I had spied an interesting restaurant (Auf) but at that stage I was stuffed from trying to eat 59 lira worth of sandwiches and cake at high tea.

But this afternoon I was starving – just worried I might be too late for lunch.  I had finally stumbled into the “real” Turkey.  No one really spoke English and it took some time – and hand gestures – to reach agreement that I could still eat lunch at 3pm.

Since it was so late I opted for the carrot-ginger soup and beet salad.  Suffice to say, lunch was so amazing I went back again in a few hours for dinner!  A wonderful salad followed by the best rack of lamb in my entire life.  And this delicious Öküzgözü.  I was drinking so much Turkish wine I was finally getting to know the local grapes 🙂

The wine was so good I wanted a second glass but my server had run off mysteriously… the food and wine were outstanding but they didn’t seem to know what to do with customers… There were about three guys hovering around the bar so when I finally got their attention I moved to the bar to have my second glass of wine.

No one spoke much English but the bartender was moving to Australia in six months to learn English.  He had made me an excellent cocktail to start the meal and we had bonded when I confirmed I wanted the manly cocktail, not the girlie substitute he had suggested.  I discovered the Australia angle via a combination of using my slowest, most basic English and him typing stuff into a google translate app on his iphone.  Communication in the 21st century 🙂 

But it worked!  I even learned what it’s like to live in an overpopulated country with Syria as your neighbour.

Since I was in the neighborhood, I then went a few doors down to the Büyük Londra hotel to see if Ïlhan was working.  He was!  So I took a seat at the bar and told him I should drink something local.  So naturally he suggested raki.  He explained the proof and I used ALL the water provided.  But when I woke up with a headache the next morning I thought, “I only had two glasses of wine – and then I remembered the raki!”

Istanbul really was this surfeit of delights.  Not only did I confirm my friendship with Ïlhan, I also met a Spanish film guy named Manuel.  We talked football (the proper kind :)).  He gave me tips on Istanbul.  I offered to take him out the next time he is filming in Vancouver.

Ïlhan finished his shift at midnight and somehow we decided the night wasn’t over.  So I followed him down some of the winding back streets of Pera until we climbed a few flights of stairs and ended up in a club where he seemed to know everyone and drinks were on the house.

There was a live band.  We danced.  And when I was too sleepy to continue and he had to head home, he organized a guide to steer me practically back to the doorstep of my hotel.

So… don’t drink the raki!  Be careful getting out of taxis.  But be friendly.  Engage with the locals.  And you will likely come home with memories no guidebook recommended…

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let them eat cake!

Maybe not great advice if you are a French peasant but if you are a tourist in Germany, you really should eat cake!  Likely not twice in one day…  but hey, it was freezing out there so I had to stop at some cafes to keep my hands from falling off… and if you have been to a German cafe you will know that the cake calls to you… it is multilingual.  And almost uniformly delicious 🙂

At least I did my kaffee und kuchen like a proper German.  I walked all over Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg so that I would know my way around the neighborhood in the dark and finally get out of the hotel! 

Both cakes were amazing.  First I had an old favourite, Apfelkuchen, along with a hot chocolate.  Here on the continent, hot chocolate is a whole different beast than in North America – not a sweet, sticky mess but a bitter essence of cocoa frothed up like a cappuccino.  The second cake was one of the best cheesecakes I have ever had, complete with a fresh blueberry topping that reminded me of my German mother-in-law’s homemade jam.

I think this is the coldest it has ever been in Berlin – and I am usually here in November.  But it was one of those brilliant bracing winter days that give you rosy cheeks… and great photos 🙂  At certain points I was worried my hands might fall off but it was too hard to resist trying to get the perfect shot of the Fernsehturm. 

The Fernsehturm (television tower) was the East’s version of KaDeWe.  It was opened on October 7, 1969, the 20th anniversary of the founding of the DDR.  It marked the very center of the city and was a showpiece for communist East Berlin.  It was associated so strongly with the East there were calls to tear it down after Reunification but now it has become a symbol of Berlin – and a handy landmark for navigation.  Particularly for me since my hotel is nearby.  I actually climbed to the roof of the hotel to get the final shot of it for this post.  I also took some photos of the entrance to the hotel – The Weinmeister…

Mitte reminds me of Toronto circa 1983, especially Queen Street back in the days when punks roamed the streets.  It’s also part of the romance of Berlin for me.  It’s not often you can go back and relive your youth in real time!  🙂

Speaking of Fernseher, I did some troubleshooting on the hotel’s technology this morning and found a cable that wasn’t plugged in to an outlet so I helpfully draped it over the iMac and told reception… and I now have TV!  

But no CNN in English.  I was hoping to catch up on what was going on in the actual world.  I can find CNN in the TV Guide but not on my fancy iMac connection.  So I am typing this listening to some ABBA tribute band called Fernando Forever… the scenery is great.  OMG it’s Nana Mouskouri!  Travel does broaden your horizons J  And I really have to give ABBA credit for drilling those crazy songs into your unsuspecting sub consciousness.  They were singing in German but I knew it was ABBA even before the band name came on.  Apparently my German is going to get some practice while I am in Berlin…

I am planning to leave the hotel tonight to finally be able to report on the nightlife of Berlin.  Since it’s Easter weekend, it might not be too happening but at least I will have seen what is going on…  Based on today’s recognisance, it would appear there is something happening only a few blocks from my hotel… If not, the cafe with the great cheesecake is right in the neighborhood – but cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner likely just a little too much.  Even Marie Antoinette wouldn’t have gone there…

 

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chasing the zeitgeist

My love affair with Berlin began over two decades ago… You know you feel at home when you start comparing rates for a single ticket and a day card without even checking to see if there is an option for a menu in English.  And you realize before the announcement is repeated in English that your quick, easy U-Bahn trip to KaDeWe is not to be.

But the bus is easy to find and there are advantages to travelling above ground.  You check out the window and see you are headed for “Zoo” so all is good.  When you finally get dumped off at Potsdamer Platz, you smile.  For most people in Berlin in 2012, it’s just a handy hub with an U-Bahn and an S-Bahn in the heart of the city.

To explain how a regular tourist day in Berlin yesterday held so much extra personal meaning for me, we have to time travel back to November 1989.  To the village of Haarlem, outside Amsterdam.  That was back when I couldn’t afford a proper hotel room and Amsterdam was too expensive for my budget so I was commuting in every morning to see the sights.  We had been there for most of the week so on Friday morning when the server came over at breakfast telling us the Berlin Wall had fallen, I just looked skeptical. 

She could see I was thinking, “I thought you spoke really good English.  What happened?  What is missing in this translation?” <note to kids – this was BEFORE the internet;  no one knew the Berlin Wall was coming down, especially people who had last seen the news in English via an expensive Time magazine purchased weeks before>

Then she brought over a newspaper and on the front page there was a picture of people dancing on the Berlin Wall!  And we were on our way to Germany!!! 

Life has a way of working out.  We had gone over our budget in Italy and Switzerland so I suggested to Scott, while standing in the train station in Bern scanning the railway timetables, that we change our plan and go to the Netherlands first since Amsterdam would give us an overnight trip on our Eurorail pass and save a night’s hotel room and Munich would not.  I am sure we would have found our way to Berlin again even if we’d already “done” it but it was one of the greatest moments of serendipity of my life.

We decided to not ditch my friend Greg and hang out with him in Celle, in northern Germany, over the weekend and head to Berlin on Monday.  We missed our chance to dance on the Wall but we got to watch everything unfold on the BBC, talk about reunification with actual Germans at the party Greg organized for the Saturday night and head off to the train station with everyone holding real jobs and unable to drop everything to go to Berlin extremely jealous.

Since we were travelling poor, we ended up in a sleeping car with a family who appeared to be from East Germany on their way to western freedom.  It was very poignant.  But didn’t prepare us at all for our arrival at Zoo.  The Germans don’t have words that short so the real name is Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten.  Zoo was the train station in West Berlin and the main entry point in those days.  I am sure it was normally busy but when you stepped into Zoo Station in November 1989, it was a zoo literally!

But there was such a feeling of euphoria in the air that no one cared about lineups or delays.  You just went with the flow and soaked up the experience of being in the middle of history – one of the very few times you risked being hugged by a stranger rather than hit by a stray bullet.  I will talk more about this incredible time and my return for the 20 year anniversary but for now we will continue with yesterday 🙂

For those of you not up on German history, Potsdamer Platz was one of Europe’s busiest squares in the 1920’s and it was the sight of the world’s first traffic lights.  It was the heart of Berlin until it was divided so it was the first hole made in the Wall in 1989.  The Wall didn’t actually “fall”, rather it just had holes punched in it and the concrete carried away until it was essentially gone.  So, when we arrived in 1989, there were four holes in the Wall, the only symbolic one being Potsdamer Platz.

But there were no tourist signs yet so we wondered how we would find it.  In those days there was one stop on the U-Bahn in East Berlin – so people were piling onto the U-Bahn at that stop and coming to West Berlin to check it out.  The West Germany government had also given each of them 100 D-marks to spend so everywhere you went there were offers for 99 D-marks!  And so many Trabants and plastic shopping bags.  People in war zones should really learn about the power of the plastic shopping bag to unite populations 🙂

The Berlin U-Bahn was giving the Tokyo bullet train a run for its money and it was impossible to move on any train so we decided to just go with the crowd and get out at a random stop and then try to head in the right direction toward the Wall.  Another non-decision that had unexpected benefits.  We found the Wall – it was hard to miss!  And just began walking along it wondering if we would find Potsdamer Platz.

We finally found a hole in the Wall.  It looked really busy.  We wondered if it was Checkpoint Charlie.  We looked at the ground and thought we saw the echoes of tram tracks (that was supposed to be the forensic evidence – tram lines crossing from East to West from the good ol’days before World War II).  But we weren’t really sure.  So we kept walking along the Wall.  And then we came to Checkpoint Charlie.  And we knew we had just found Potsdamer Platz!

I came back in 2000 to see the beginning of the redevelopment of Potsdamer Platz, I walked all the way there and back from the Brandenburg Gate along the dominos in 2009 and yesterday I got dumped off there because they are doing maintenance on the U-Bahn.  It looks very corporate and boring these days but for me it will always be my very first experience of Berlin.

Another touchstone from 1989 is KaDeWe.  Germans like to create really long words – and then use a short form to actually talk about things 🙂  KaDeWe is the Kaufhaus des Westens – the department store of the West.  It is over 100 years old and is the largest department store in Europe.  Over the years of the divided Berlin, it was a gloating mecca of commerce to taunt the East and encourage citizens to escape to western freedom – including the freedom to consume copious quantities of goods you don’t really need…

Yesterday I was at KaDeWe for the nostalgia – and to buy socks.  I will not bore you with my obsession with German hosiery but I came back to the hotel with an entire shopping bag and left the sales ladies at Wolford and Falke bemused as usual.

My first time at KaDeWe was in 1989.  Scott wisely just stayed outside – but I wanted to experience the mayhem.  According to legend, KaDeWe had been used to taunt the East over all the years of the cold war so every person in East Berlin wanted to see what they had been missing.  And it felt like they were all there on the same day!

Yesterday was only slightly less busy than that first day in 1989. This is a pretty Catholic country so there is still no shopping on Sundays and, this being Easter weekend, everyone was rushing in on the last shopping day for the week.  I think being a washroom attendant on the sixth floor at KaDeWe may be the most lucrative job in Berlin!  The sixth floor is the famous gourmet floor.  I had been unable to find a bathroom on other floors so figured I would just endure the line.  The custom seemed to be to leave the attendant a euro – I think the two of them made at least 20 euros while I was standing in line!  They did a great job though.  If you like stuff clean, Germany is your country 🙂

I also indulged in another very German thing – the department store champagne bar!  At KaDeWe, you can actually choose your brand.  I chose Jacquart because there were seats available – and it is good champagne.  I was planning to work on this post while I sipped my champagne but then this gentleman sat down beside me and started talking to me in German.  His name was Rudolf.  If I got the information correct, his wife has passed away but he is a native of Berlin and they came to KaDeWe a lot as a couple.  Apparently she had a weakness for porcelain 🙂

The conversation was a bit of a challenge but we managed to muddle through in a combination of German and English and it was a really nice connection to make in a foreign city.  He wondered what I was doing in Berlin and I tried to explain my history with the city.  I wish my German was better and I could have asked him what it had been like to live in this city your entire life through its tumultuous history.

I finished off my expedition yesterday by walking past another past of Berlin history – the Brandenburg Gate.  This is where I froze to death in the rain watching the twentieth anniversary celebrations in 2009 – while thinking fondly of the countless hours I spent freezing at the Brandenburg Gate in 1989 – the rumour was that they would make another symbolic hole in the Wall while we were in Berlin so we were all hanging out eating würst, drinking beer and waiting with all the TV cameras just in case we could actually get a snapshot of history in the exact moment it was being made.

The weather yesterday was insane.  It started pleasant, turned to rain, was brilliant blue sky sunshine as I walked past the Brandenburg Gate and had turned to snow by the time I emerged from dinner.  Since U2 wasn’t working properly, I decided to try taking an S-Bahn that I hoped would drop me at Alexanderplatz, rather than whisk me to some neighboring town outside Berlin.  Clemens would be proud 🙂  He taught me how to use the schedule in a German train station and I even connected back with the U-Bahn to get home without having to brave the snow!

Needless to say it had been a big day and it was hard to imagine venturing out again as I had planned to try and find a nightclub in my spring coat in the snow…  I do want to do some more exploring in Berlin.  It is definitely one of those über-cool places that seems at the epicentre of the cultural zeitgeist.

But sometimes you just need to spend a Saturday night in your hotel room reading a book and nursing your cold.  Chasing the zeitgeist is exhausting.  The real secret is to make the zeitgeist revolve around you – and whatever turns you on.  Truly cool people do not worry about what other people think or follow their lead.  One of the most valuable lessons I learned from my maverick father 🙂

The sun is shining.  I better shower and get out there.  Who knows how long it will last…  Even the weather here feels like you’re chasing the zeitgeist…

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Berlin is not Stuttgart!

So says my Time Out guide to Berlin.  Poor Stuttgart… it’s not so bad.  And Germans are Germans no matter where you go 🙂  Well, Helmut Kohl did declare that Germany was “not a land of immigration.”  If you do not speak German perfectly, they will look at you like you are speaking Swahili.  My Swahili definitely gets a better response 🙂

But my German is not all “weg”.  Last night I managed to order dinner without speaking any English until it was time for the “Rechnung”(bill).  The server was very pleasant and when he finally understood and pronounced the word, I realized – ah, my “ch” was off… spoken like a wimpy North American, not a true Deutsch.

This morning was more entertaining.  Ironically, I am here in the land of technology and I have an iMac in my room… but nothing works!  The hotel’s technology offerings are a disaster.  In Paris and Istanbul, it was seamless!  Oh, but would the Germans hate to hear that!

Getting on-line to post this blog was quite the ordeal.  The connection parameters are far too complicated, they are not intuitive and there are no instructions in the room – or even on the iMac.

So I was finally forced to call the front desk… we had the kind of classic argument you can only really have with a German… I was trying to get the password right… she kept saying ‘’i’’ like easy… I kept saying, “that doesn’t make sense in English.”  But she just thought I was a stupid foreigner who didn’t know English very well.  Luckily, I speak quite a lot of German and “i” sounds like “e” auf Deutsch so I tried it when the “i” didn’t work – and I am on-line!

I learned long ago that you have to be patient with the Germans – and leave your ego at home.  Most of them have egos for two so you can use some of their spare capacity.  I guess that’s what happens when people tell you are “the master race”.  But, once you get past the frosty exterior, most of them are wonderful people with a wicked sense of humour.

I just smile as they diss my Deutsch and we swap over to English.  I come from a country that prides itself on immigration so I enjoy listening to butchered English and trying to see if I can figure it out.

It is practically impossible for me to not be able to figure it out, no matter how bad it is… and here, auf Deutschland, long ago I learned how to speak a pigeon patois form of Englisch complete with a Deutsch accent.  It’s my little secret – they all think their English is so great because they sound just like me… but I am just messing with them 😉

Other than the technology, the hotel is very cool and pictures will be forthcoming…  It is true that Berlin is not Stuttgart and can’t wait to get outside and explore.  I am in the former East Berlin, in Mitte… last time I was here it was the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  And this was the neighborhood to be in… we’ll see what has changed in three years.  Ich bin nicht ein Berliner aber Ich liebe Berlin…

We will go back and catch up on the stories from Istanbul… where everyone was so supportive of my butchered Turkish… 😉

 

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travel stories

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a marriage proposal before noon

You may be thinking by now that you will be spared the stories 🙂  But I have just been too busy with marriage proposals, men who want to be my “free guide”(payment in kisses 😉 and all the new friends I am making hanging out in bars…

This post has been started a number of times now so will have to revise some of the earlier notes to get up to date.  We’ll see if I can actually get this posted today!  It’s now Friday morning and I am waiting for my flight to Berlin.  Managed to actually make it to the House Cafe’, as recommended in my guidebook.  And it is as good as promised!  My Eggs Benedict not quite standard issue – ciabatta, regular bacon, salad and a brown butter hollandaise – but it worked 🙂

It is obvious this is a Mediterranean country.  Food has been delicious and you can taste the sunshine, especially in the vegetables.  I have become addicted to Turkish olive oil but thanks to my carpet (it’s a good story ;), I don’t have any room in my suitcase sadly.

So much has happened since the last post, I have decided I will just have to go chronologically.  On Monday I just got my feet wet.  I love travelling on my own but I make sure I know my way around a place before I get too lost.  I put a lot of energy into deciding where to stay in Istanbul – and, as anticipated, it was a great launching pad to get to know the city.

I am staying in Beyoğlu.  This is the hip and happening section of Istanbul and the main shopping street was just one tiny lane over from the hotel.  Taksim Square is pretty ugly but a great reference point so I headed there first.

Monday was an absolutely glorious day and my guidebook said the view from Leb-i Derya on the top of the Richmond Hotel was possibly the best view in Istanbul.  So I had a long leisurely lunch, got to know my server and planned my assault on Constantinople over the next three days.  I also took the first set of what would become a crazy number of photos of this highly photogenic city.

Tuesday morning I got up early and it was time to leave my comfort zone and take a taxi to historical Istanbul.  The hotel staff are wonderful and there are countless taxis lingering about at any hour so getting into a taxi was a piece of cake.  Getting out of taxi proved to be a little more challenging…

The driver did not appear to speak English so I just had to hope I would arrive at the Blue Mosque.  The Blue Mosque and Haghia Sophia are opposite each other so it’s easy to know you are in the right place!

What is not so clear are the dangers lurking when you step out of the taxi.  Especially as a newbie who has been spoiled by the laid-back ways of your now native Pera.

In Sultanahmet, life is a lot more stressful.  This is where all the big tourist attractions are – and where you are part of the game, whether you realize it or not.  I was busy focusing on whether the taxi had dropped me in the right spot instead of noticing the guy opening the taxi door for me.

Nïzam seemed like a pretty decent guy and he would be my guide for free – and I was not obligated to visit his family’s rug shop at the end of our tour.  It seemed easier to just say “yes” than to figure out how to get rid of him.  And the start was very promising…

He was charming and very knowledgeable about the buildings.  Apparently he was trained as an architect although his current profession seemed unclear.  He was a master at the protocols; that was certain.  He did not like queues so he just told me to put my scarf on (I had come prepared!) and we went through the local entrance leaving the hordes of tourists waiting on their own.

I was very appreciative of his efforts and have been accused of being an incorrigible flirt so we were getting on famously until the kissing started to get a little out of hand… but not everyone can claim to have been groped in a mosque 😉

I think being agreeable is always the best strategy in complicated situations so I kept tagging along with him, trying not to get caught in too much kissing crossfire.  It was a wonderful tour and I am really glad that I did it.  It was so much easier than navigating on my own and I learned a lot.

But then the marriage proposal came.  At least he allowed me to wait until after lunch to make a decision.  It was all getting a lot more complicated than I had planned on so I agreed to go and look at carpets so that I could kill some time and figure out how to graciously get out of the mess I had gotten into.  And he had insisted I didn’t HAVE to BUY a carpet, just drink some tea and look at some…

But then he introduced his cousin 🙂  I have no idea how much I was ripped off but the carpet is gorgeous and I would spend that much on dinner for two so it was well worth the money.  The show was spectacular!  The cousin was very smooth, with much better English.  They brought me Turkish coffee – which was a bit much but I thought I had to try it!  The rug whisperer started tossing rugs on the floor, flipping them around so you could see how they changed colour depending on how the light hit them.

I hadn’t planned on buying a Turkish rug so had no idea about them – except that they didn’t go so well with my purple and leopard print decor 🙂  But they come from different regions, there are traditional symbols, some are prayer rugs, some are prayer rugs but you can’t pray on them cause they have been jazzed up too much.  The spiel was well done and I think I learned a little bit.

I finally decided a rug would be cheaper than bringing home a live souvenir from Turkey and that would be my concession.  I also wasn’t quite sure how to get out of the room.  I decided I was also paying for the world’s best sales training 🙂  At least I didn’t end up spending over $2,000 I hadn’t planned on.  That was where we started!

It was all quite a show.  Both the carpet salesman and I were trying to be gracious and I left myself open to be sold to so finally just caved.  It IS really beautiful!  Not sure if he was trying to improve his deal at the end or if it was a genuine mistake but I know my exchange rates so the price didn’t get inflated over 50% when suddenly at the end, it got converted from US dollars into Turkish lira…

At that point I was still open to going for lunch with Nïzam and then he was supposed to take me to Süleymaniye Mosque but the courtship seemed to be progressing rather rapidly and his English was pretty good but when he seemed annoyed that I had already said “yes” to a question I was now answering with a “no”, I decided it was time to cut my losses and try to get a taxi to take me from Old Istanbul back to the Istanbul of the Republic where life seemed a lot easier!

Nïzam insisted he was a good guy and did graciously get me a taxi back to my hotel – and did not jump in the front seat – so I believe him.  Apparently he was just mesmerized by my green eyes and my smile…  I will never forget my first visit to the Blue Mosque – and will look at my carpet with fondness remembering the story of how I acquired it.  That night I met Ïlhan, who enjoyed the story.  He told me he was already married – and one wife was enough trouble 🙂  More on him coming up…

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eating & drinking - well, social commentary, travel stories

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